School Board, Parents Get Cozier Complaints Of 'The Wall' Serve As Wake-up Call

EDUCATION - Today's assignment

March 16, 1997|By Mike Berry of The Sentinel Staff

Some Seminole County parents refer to it as ''the wall.''

By the wall, they mean the lack of communication they perceive coming out of school district headquarters. Being left out of important decisions. Getting little notice of issues going before the School Board.

That perception might come as a surprise to school district administrators, who pride themselves as being unusually open, accessible and sensitive to parental concerns.

But about a dozen parents shared their concerns several weeks ago with Melissa Hardin, chairwoman of parent and community involvement for the Florida PTA.

They complained about the quality of information they get from the school district. And they said vocal parents are sometimes treated as troublemakers to be mollified.

''I have always felt out of place,'' said one parent heavily involved in school issues. ''I get a lot of calls for baking cookies, but that's not what I want to do.''

Hardin sympathized with their point of view, though she noted that everyone is adjusting to the growing role of parents in school decisions.

Some present at the meeting recalled how hands-off their own parents were when they were growing up.

After the meeting Hardin passed the parents' concerns along to Superintendent Paul Hagerty.

''It was very, very well-received,'' Hardin said last week.

Suddenly additional School Board agendas are available at the beginning of board meetings.

Hagerty agreed to more meetings with small parent groups, similar to ones he held when he first took the job in 1992, Hardin said.

The school district's Web page includes summaries of recent meetings, and in the future will include entire agendas for upcoming ones.

The Web page address, which gets 50 to 100 hits a month, is http://www.scps.k12.fl.us

''Everyone seems to be happy with the move forward,'' Hardin said.

Florida schools have been moving to increase academic standards. If one national survey is any indication, many students will have no problem with that.

The Public Agenda Foundation conducted a random sample telephone survey of more than 1,300 public and private high school students in rural Alabama, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and New York state. Results were released last month.

About 65 percent of those students said they could do much better in school if they tried. And 79 percent said they would learn more if schools enforced being on time and homework completion.

Said one student in a focus group: ''You can just glide through. . . . They practically hand you a diploma.''

Founded in New York in 1975, the Public Agenda is a nonpartisan, nonprofit opinion research and education organization.

''Half of the teens in public schools today told us their schools fail to challenge them to do their best,'' said Deborah Wadsworth, executive director of Public Agenda.

''Students across the country spoke about how little work they do to earn acceptable grades and, consequently, how boring and meaningless their classes are. . . . The students seem to be crying out for the adults in their lives to take a stand and inspire them to do more.''